Secrets
by Savage Valentine
Summary: Kid has a secret, and it's up to Liz to keep it.


_Kid has a secret. If anyone were to find out, it might destroy him._

A/N: I usually don't go for writing prompts, but I liked this one I found. I just thought of it and… well, read! I wrote this a long time ago but never gave it an ending, so I threw one together and decided to post it. Let me know if you like it!

* * *

"No one can ever know about this." Kid said sternly as he closed and locked the door behind him. "Don't even tell Patty."

Liz didn't really hear him, her mind still too awhirl from what had just happened. Life with Kid had always been like riding a rollercoaster blindfolded. Up, down, spin, make your stomach sick, and you have no chance in hell to know what comes next. Especially this. She rubbed her arms. He placed a hand on her shoulder and their eyes met. He blinked and bowed his head.

"I'm sorry." His voice quivered a bit. She took his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. "Perhaps I should have been more level-headed. Maybe I shouldn't have been so impulsive. But, we are partners, aren't we? It'd happen eventually…"

"Patty's our partner, too. She's my _sister_. Maybe we should tell her." She meant it innocently, but Kid looked as if she had just suggested leaving the toilet paper unfolded, which (to Kid) was unthinkable. Liz placed her hand on Kid's and brought it down from her shoulder, squeezing it.

"I don't think she'd understand. Maybe she would, but you must admit, she is a little immature." He cleared his throat and let his hand fall to his side. She's more mature than you think, Liz thought, but the thought left her mind almost faster than she thought it. "Anyway, we should go before anyone notices we're missing."

So formal, so calculated, so perfect. Liz followed him down the hall back to the main room where Patty sat engrossed in a cartoon. She probably hadn't even noticed they had left. Liz sat next to Patty on the couch while Kid went to another room to read. And then things were back to normal, as if it hadn't happened at all.

"HEY YOU BASTARD KICK HIS ASS!" Patty cheered the hero on.

It was a lot easier than Liz expected to keep quiet about what had happened. Kid never mentioned it, and to her it already seemed like she dreamed it up. Maybe she did. Maybe she fell asleep on the couch watching cartoons and had dreamed it all up inspired by the obnoxiously loud explosions and animated violence. The next day she wandered back to the hall. She thought it looked the same, but that was hard to tell because the mansion had so many halls that the first time she had been down this way was the day before with Kid. The door was sturdily locked. She hadn't been back since.

The school bell clanged and the students sulked to their classes. Mondays were awful. Even Kid, though he'd never let on about it, hated Monday mornings. Still, if Kid could do it, Liz thought she could too. So she and Patty entered the classroom and took their seats (Kid wasn't with them because he was making sure all the assignments on the assignment board were lined up perfectly). Soul and Maka were arguing over Blair's antics again; Tsubaki was sitting quietly next to an empty seat as BlackStar seemed to have decided to be late again today. Liz sighed and nibbled on her hair.

"Hey Sis… Why do you think Kid's been acting all weird lately?"

Liz bolted upright. "Weird? He- he hasn't been acting weird! Nothing happened! Really!"

Patty touched her cheek with a finger and pouted her lips. "Remember when we were watching cartoons on Friday? He's been really quiet since then and yesterday I didn't tie my shoes right but he didn't freak out and cry over it like he usually does."

"Patty, I-" Liz's eye twitched. She had forgotten how perceptive Patty could be! Kid seriously underestimated her cognitive abilities. Even if she didn't tell Patty, Patty would be able to figure it out eventually. And when she did, she'd be mad Liz didn't tell her. Sisters don't keep secrets from each other. "Patty, about Kid…"

"_No one can ever know about this_._"_

Liz bit her tongue and smiled. "Oh! You know Kid! He probably got himself worked up about some little detail on the last mission or something! You know how he gets completely serious sometimes and doesn't tell us anything!" Her voice was a little too fast, a little too high-pitched, but the answer satisfied Patty.

"That's right! He's just being a secretive bastard again!" And with that she started daydreaming and humming, staring at the ceiling like it was the prettiest thing in the world. Liz sighed. That was close!

Maka leaned over to Liz. "Has Kid been acting weird again? Do you think it's something bad?" Liz's heart began to beat faster. Now Maka was prodding in on it too! Had she done something to make them think anything was not normal? Was there something she said or the way she looked that screamed "I'VE GOT A SECRET" to everyone in the classroom? She had to stay calm. She promised Kid she wouldn't tell anyone about Friday night. Liz shrugged and opened her schoolbook, but no amount of hard staring actually lead to the act of reading and she sighed.

School went on as normal. Professor Stein began class with another dissection assignment on a hedgehog. BlackStar burst into the room, disrupting the lesson (to which some of the students were greatly relieved, as Stein was just about to cut open the hedgehog). Kid came in quietly while Stein delivered detention to BlackStar and took his seat. Liz looked over and saw his triumphant grin; another hall made perfect by him and chances were he'd be in a good mood the rest of the day. Dissection, independent study, gym, more study, most of which Liz couldn't pay attention to as she kept looking to Kid, who seemed so calm and normal- well, as normal as he could be. Maka and Soul talked about their latest kishin egg (Maka could get even more obsessed than Kid on the subject!) which they found in Switzerland. Somehow that turned into Patty becoming excited about yodeling. They were promptly asked to leave the cafeteria.

After lunch was their time to train in the shooting range. Liz dreaded its coming. What if Patty could tell? It wasn't like Liz could pretend she and Kid were still on the same wavelength! Even if she tried to hide it, Patty would know. Behind those (sometimes) misleading blonde features dwelled an astute mind. And if Patty could tell, couldn't the others! Maybe not BlackStar, but surely Tsubaki? Soul? Maka? All this time they could tell and were just waiting for her to crack. No, this is just getting insane, she thought. Being with Kid was making her crazy. This was normal. Everything was the same, normal. Even Kid was the same but even then her mind kept going back to Friday and… And it would never be the same again! And everybody knew about it! She had to talk to Kid.

But it was difficult to get Kid alone. Patty's presence was constant, and this was one of the few times Liz became annoyed about having a sister. She first tried to catch Kid a few moments before training by purposefully rearranging a collage in the hallway. Kid took the bait, and Patty was in the bathroom. Liz approached Kid cautiously. _So, about Friday…_ _Kid, what happened on Friday… I know last Friday was really weird but…_ _Kid, we need to talk about…_

"Ah, Liz, there you are. Will you hold these photographs while I make the lettering even?" Lettering? She never touched the… Apparently she hadn't needed to mess with the collage anyway. She took the photographs, careful to avoid getting her fingerprints on them, and watched Kid align the letters with the tape measure he always carried around with him. _I want to talk about that…_

"Kid…" Suddenly it felt like the temperature jumped ten degrees; she knew she was blushing. This was so much more complicated than it needed to be, but dammit! Kid always made things more complicated. She sucked in her breath. "Kid, I wanted to talk about Friday…"

Kid glared at her from the corner of his eye. "Oh. I thought we had resolved that." _Resolved it?_ Liz thought. She ground her teeth.

"No we haven't. We haven't even mentioned it since then. I don't know how you can just go on like everything's normal. What's the problem with talking about it?"

Kid hesitated. Liz's eyes widened in shock. For a second Kid's stoic features faltered, as if he were about to express a feeling. Which one? Anger? Shame? Insecurity? Liz sucked in her breath and went on, "I know you're a Shinigami, but it's okay to be… human sometimes. Kid, I want to-"

"Hey Liz! Hey Kid!" Maka popped around the corner. Liz leapt into the air. She dropped the photographs, which caught on a draft of air and spread across the floor. "Oh, sorry!"

"Geez, Maka, you always make a mess." Soul said coolly.

"You're the one who's always leaving his things around the apartment! Sorry, Liz." Maka gave a sincere face of apology, but Liz hardly noticed. She was trying too hard to catch her breath.

"It's no problem." Her voice trembled.

"Ahhh! Liz! You dropped all the photographs on the floor! They'll get dusty!"

"Who cares Kid! We'll brush the dust off!" Liz snapped.

"Um, is everything alright?" Maka's eyes seemed cloudy, and Liz recognized this to mean she was seeing their souls. It may have not been a conscious thing, but Liz felt totally violated.

"Everything is _fine_!" Liz threw up her arms reflexively (though this wouldn't stop Maka from being able to see her soul). "Kid, whenever you decide to stop being so crazy, Patty and I will be on the range!" She huffed and stormed off, not caring how confused she left the people behind her. She passed Patty as the girl was coming out of the bathroom and grabbed her arm before she could even say "Hi Sis!".

"Is everything alright? Where's Kid." Patty asked with that innocent concerned face she could pull off so well.

"Straightening pictures. We'll just train without him." She saw her sister's face. "Look, I really don't want to see Kid right now. Let's just take the afternoon to ourselves, okay? Let's go get some ice cream from that place on Main Death Street." She suggested with a smile.

"Yay! Patty wants ice scream!"

Skipping school wasn't new to them, and in her stressed state Liz decided she'd had enough for the day. The ice cream was great; they ate it outside on the patio under an umbrella that shunned off some of the direct heat from the sun. Patty made a mess as always, so they hurried home to bathe. Instead of homework afterwards, they watched cartoons while Liz painted her nails. Patty brought out a board game and begged Liz to play with her. She eventually conceded to her younger sibling and they spent a good part of the afternoon ironically playing the game of LIFE in Death Mansion. By the time they got around to ordering pizza for dinner, Kid still hadn't returned home, not that either of them worried. Relief washed over Liz in droves as she thought of Kid spending the night at the school fixing banners, frames, and toilet paper rolls. He wouldn't be here and she could focus on something for once.

About ten o'clock Patty had fallen asleep on the couch, half the pizza sitting out uneaten. Liz looked back at her sister sprawled across the couch, smiling in her sleep and muttering softly to some silly dream. The hall looked exactly the same from the weekend; Kid somehow found the time to keep the whole mansion in order between missions, classwork, and hanging out with the others. It was so pristine it gave Liz an uneasy feeling. Growing up on the streets, Death Mansion was especially too clean. The feeling that there should have been a mess, something un-neat, something knicked or marked or out of alignment somewhere always haunted her. Suddenly she felt possessed by the urge to make the hall unacceptable; tilt a picture frame, push a vase off-center, pull a tablecloth to one side… Liz squeezed her fingers into a fist as she approached the door. It felt like she could deal with it here, where it happened. If there was one place that could provide answers or resolution, it had to be here.

In Brooklyn, part of being one of the Thompson Sisters included breaking and entering. Producing a simple hairpin, Liz analyzed the lock on the door. It looked easy enough. She inserted the pin and felt around inside. A few minutes passed with little progress. A small break relaxed the muscles in her hand and gave her time to come up with a slightly different strategy. She attacked the lock again, determined to get it open. More time passed but this time ended with a satisfying _click_. Grinning, she placed her hand and turned the knob.

"Liz!" Kid stood ten feet from her, nonhuman gold eyes wide with shock and a hint of betrayal. Liz blushed and jumped back, covering her face with one hand.

"Kid!" She couldn't come up with anything else to say. All day she wanted to be alone with him and now there weren't any words to come. She fumbled out something. "Seeing inside… helps… better… things…" Her garbled words fell on deaf ears as she saw Kid clench and release his fists repeatedly and bow his head.

"I thought we went over this." He sounded angry, as if she had not folded the newspaper correctly after reading it. "What were you thinking? Is it really that important to you?" His voice rose, but when it did Liz snapped back to confidence in her actions.

"Yes it is! It is important, and you should know that! We're not just partners, Kid! We're friends! Close friends and things happen between close friends and when they do you don't just ignore them and treat them indifferently! A god wouldn't ignore them! A _man_ wouldn't ignore them! I still love you Kid! I still think you're an awesome person and you're going to make one badass god one day! And the only way to do that is to tell me what this means to you!" She dropped her voice. "I want you to trust me." She said so quietly, she didn't know if what she said went any farther than her own ears. Kid's face suddenly fell and it was his turn to be embarrassed.

"You don't get it." He said finally. His voice wasn't angry anymore. "I'm a shinigami. I can't make mistakes. Everything I do has to be perfect. I have to set an example…"

Liz closed the distance between them and threw her arms around him. "Being perfect doesn't mean you don't make mistakes. It means you accept them." Kid tentatively returned the hug. Physical affection wasn't his style, and knowing this, Liz giggled a little and wiped a tear from her eye. They shared the moment in the comfort of each other's arms.

"It's odd," Kid mused in Liz's ear. "I can't ever tell when you're laughing or crying." But Liz felt his body relax, and she had a feeling he was smiling now, too.

"YAHOO! I FOUND THEM!"Both Kid and Liz shivered as the blue hair ninja landed neatly in front of them, puffing out his chest, and jerking his thumb to his victorious face.

_When did he get here? He's so stealthy when he's eavesdropping._ Kid and Liz broke their embrace and turned on their antagonist. Tsubaki, Soul, Maka, and Patty came down the hall.

"BlackStar! I don't think we should be interrupting!" Tsubaki, always the voice of reason, optimistically tried to call down the vain boy.

"I think we were interrupting something private. Maybe we should go. Come on Soul." Maka tugged on Soul's sleeve, but he didn't budge.

"What's all this about? I think it's about what's behind that door. I wonder what's got that guy all worked up." Soul and BlackStar stared at the door, which didn't look any different than any of the other doors down the long hallway. It didn't stick out in any way, except for Liz's hairpin still in the keyhole.

"WHAT'S THIS! NO SECRET IS TOO BIG FOR BLACKSTAR!" The boisterous boy exclaimed. "I'M BIGGER THAN ANY SECRET!" And with that he brought up his leg and kicked down the door. It splintered from the impact and crashed into the floor.

"It was unlocked you know!" Liz shouted. "What are you even doing?" _He's going to see it! Oh no! Kid!_ She turned but Kid had already moved.

"Dammit why are you always breaking things?" Kid's foot connected to BlackStar's chin, knocking the ninja off his feet. But the damage was done; the door was open (broken in half). The kids peered inside. Everyone except Kid and Liz gasped.

"Oh my God…" Maka's breath caught in her throat. Tsubaki was speechless. She placed her hand over her mouth and stood dumbly staring at the scene before her. Patty crumpled to the floor laughing. Her legs kicked the air as she rolled around with heaving sides.

BlackStar got up and crossed his arms. "What's that?" He asked.

Soul tucked his hands into his pockets and grinned. "So, this is the great secret Death the Kid has been hiding all along. I knew a symmetrical guy like that couldn't keep it up forever."

"I'm garbage! I'm worse than garbage! I'm a failure! I don't deserve to live!" Kid moaned on his hands and knees. Patty laughed harder. Liz moaned.

The room was a study. A coffee table took up the center of the room, surrounded by a loveseat to the right and one cushioned chair behind it, but nothing to the left. Seven books were piled on the upper right corner close to the loveseat. There were three expensive looking paintings, none of them identical and none of them centered on the wall. A desk with drawers only on one side preoccupied the left side of the room. It only had one, uncentered flower vase. An odd number of pens and pencils were in the pencil-holder. On the opposite side of the room from the desk was a large glass shelf of bird carvings. Birds nesting, perching, spreading their wings, or preening their feather filled the shelves.

With the exception of the ceiling light, the room was completely asymmetrical.

"Wow, I'm never going to be able to look at you the same way again!" BlackStar exclaimed to the crying Kid. "This is freaky!" He looked back into the room.

"What's with the birds?" Maka asked, still slightly in shock by what her eyes were seeing.

"This is nothing. There's a room in this place full of ancient ritualistic clay sculptures of donkeys from some old aborigine tribe from South America…" Liz explained. "The mansion's full of weird stuff." She reached out a hand and placed it on Kid's back, hoping he'd keep his grief short tonight.

Suddenly Soul grinned and he gestured to BlackStar. "So, Shinigami-Sama's son has a messy room. But he'd still try to keep thing symmetrical, right?" BlackStar wasn't catching on, but Liz was. A weight dropped in her stomach. "He'd keep a symmetrical asymmetrical room on the other side of his house, right?"

The most evil grin Liz had ever seen spread across BlackStar's face. Without a word the two were running off to the other side of the mansion.

"Stop it you guys! Don't be so dumb! When I get my hands on you, I'm going to 'Maka Chop' you so hard you'll lose all your kishin eggs!" Maka and Tsubaki ran after their partners.

Patty got a hold of herself and sat up. "Kid doesn't clean his room either! Look! Seven books!" She pointed to the books on the coffee table.

Kid burst into his self-deprecation full force. "I'm lower than scum! I'll never be a Shinigami! I can't even keep a single room clean!"

Liz pat his back and habitually cooed words of encouragement to her meister. At least she didn't have to keep the secret anymore.


End file.
